June 12th, 2008
By Arthur
As some of you know, Jeff and I have been looking for a camera that will allow us to capture some hunting footage. We had found one system, that I wrote about in a previous post, but that system was a little cumbersome. It required you to buy a bracket, that screwed into your stabilizer hole on the riser of your bow, and also required that you mount your camera on top of it. Then last week we were at the Gander Mountain Archery Event and we came across the Roscoby Riser Cam.
This particular camera has only been out since January, but I have to be honest and say that it is simply a beaut! This company is pretty ingenious with the design that they have come up with, and all of the guys from the company that we talked to were very cool.
The camera is a bow mounted unit, but unlike most systems out there, it looks and feels like a stabilizer. It isn’t much bigger than a stabilizer, and after holding a bow with the camera mounted on it, I can tell you that it doesn’t feel any different than shooting a bow with a regular stabilizer. It is honestly a slick little design and Jeff and I were very impressed with the product.
The camera is very easy to use, quiet, and pretty versatile. It operates on two AA lithium batteries that provide approximately 5 hours of use. It also uses an SD card for memory which is perfect. They advertise that for every gig of memory on the card you get approx. 50 minutes of video footage. Works for me! The camera is also very water resistant (the only reason they can’t advertise it as waterproof is because of the microphone port) so it is versatile in all conditions and the lithium batteries are designed to operate at -20 F so it can handle cold conditions as well.
The only flaw I could find with the camera is that on some of the footage the video was a little shaky. I think that just comes with the territory though. I think it also depends on the shooter. We watched a number of videos that they had available at the show, and only one of them was jumpy at all. I still think, though, that these are the best units we have seen for this purpose. Despite the footage being a little shaky, it was still huge improvement over the last camera system that we saw.
I’m pretty sure that before season starts Jeff and I will have at least one of these units. We might even have two of them. I guess only time will tell. This system is not made for DVD quality video, but for the average guy to go out bowhunting and be able to capture some of his hunts this easily, I think that this camera is more than suitable.
The price tag is a little steep at 349.99, but considering what all this camera can do, I don’t think that is too bad a price. The camera can also be used for other things as well and even has a tripod mount on it for filming other activities.
A pretty cool idea from a rowdy and fun bunch of guys. They almost had Jeff and I walking out with the camera that day. Go check out their site. I guarantee you’ll be impressed.
Author’s note: I did not receive any compensation for the this post from Roscoby. The only reason I wrote a post about it, just like other products I’ve wrote about, is because I thought it was cool!
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